Slavery

I am owned. I am a ward of the state. I am not a free man. I am a SLAVE. The state of Michigan is my Slave Master, and Master expects my life and everything that comes with it.

He make us work, for literal pennies a day. If we refuse, he puts us on what's called double-O. I don't know what it stands for, but it means that we can't leave our cells.

Its either out in the yard or inside the unit, field or house, either shovel snow or clean toilets. I clean toilets.

Master gives us just enough food to survive. Minimal calories. He covers us in the cheapest clothes: two pairs of pants, two shirts, three pairs of socks, a pair of thin cardboard like shoes, and a few pairs of underwear and a windbreaker-thin coat. They stack us, one on top of the other, eight men in a cube the size of a small two car garage.

There is nothing productive to do in here. Nothing, not in ANY meaningful way. It's up to you to figure out how to be how to be positive, how to avoid mental atrophy and emotional deformation.

Master has all these cliche inspirational quotes, well, they're more like insinuations, like "hard work pays off" and "strive for success." They're meaningless. Master says that he wants us to be free someday, that he will help us be successful, to become contributing members of society, to be born again, rehabilitated, but it's all bullshit. Words are just words; in a place like this, only actions matter. He doesn't want us to leave and he definitely doesn't WANT us to succeed. At best he's indifferent.

When I'm not scrubbing flecks of dried shit from the rim of a toilet, I spend my time writing. For nearly six years I've committed myself to honing my craft. I've let all that was frivolous fall away. I put in hours and hours, day after day, of hard work. While others were gang banging, I was writing and editing. While others were playing cards, I was meditating, going inward in an attempt at becoming a better person, and I was there, everyday, documenting my experience. While others were playing basketball or watching TV, I was reading books on grammar, I was sacrificing to my craft. I was getting better, and my passion, for this thing of mine, grew. Through this commitment I'd discovered my calling, my purpose, my reason.

I'd finally found a place to put all of these dangerous ideas, with their jagged edges and sharp corners, that have been crashing around in my head, causing chaos for years. I found a way to pour out some of the gravity pulling at my heart, to release some of the rage in my gut; and it wasn't long before I realized that I had something to say, and that sometimes, when I'm at my best, I can help people. I can express things that they're thinking but can't articulate; I can make them question things, I can help them wake up, I can warn them of pitfalls so that they can avoid disaster.

I figured out the secret, the thing everyone's looking for. On this plantation, I discovered my holy grail: how to make a difference and a living at the same time.

Once discovered, there is nothing to do but commit yourself to the task of fulfilling this purpose, no matter where you find yourself, slave or free man, all else should fade into the background of your craft.

After hearing that master wants us to have a foundation for when he sets us free, to establish some financial security, I started to think about doing something with my craft to provide for myself, my son, and my family. I mean it's what master wants.

How stupid I was!

I thought that if I could work hard enough and figure out a way to help people with my writing, all while becoming self sufficient, well that would be something to make this time actually count for something. I could help my kid with school clothes, maybe get him his first phone, I could try to repay my mother for the countless blessings she's bestowed upon me, I could pay fines and court costs so that when I am set free I can get my license back and maybe have enough to get a car and my own place to live, so I don't have to be a burden to my family anymore.

With all this in mind, I started to write. I sat down and told myself that it was time to stop messing around, time to start producing something real, something meaningful, something of value.

It was indeed time.

I decided to write a full length novel. I started in November and gave myself a year to finish. I had never even attempted something that would take years to complete, much less finish it.

I said I was gonna do it and I did it. Everyday I sat down, when master wasn't counting us, making us shovel snow, or clean the toilets, and I wrote. November was on the horizon and I was getting close. I wrote my ass off, hours on end, everyday until I was successful. 

I had finally done something worthy of my abilities, something that I could stand by and be genuinely proud of. This thing I created is a part of me, it is from me, it's special, and it's fucking good, I mean REALLY GOOD. I stayed focused, worked hard, never took my eyes off the prize, and I never gave up. I finally had something to give to my loved ones.

A few months after I was done, I was contacted by someone who said that they thought I had created something of value, that I had something to say worth listening to and that this thing, it could be worth something.

I didn't tell master, but I didn't keep it hidden either. I figured he'd, at worst, be indifferent, but maybe he'd actually be happy, or proud even, that I'd be able to help take care of my family, that I was building a foundation so that, when he sets me free in a few years, I'll have something to go home to, that I'll have a chance at success, that all my hard work as a slave would count for something when I became a free man.

And then my friend told me what master was really like. He said, I didn't have to hide my hard work, but don't ever, ever, let master find out that you expect to do anything with it. If he finds out that it's helped you in anyway, especially financially, that he'll take whatever he can find. I told my friend that it can't be true, that it can't be legal for him to do that, for him to just steal from his slaves like that. My friend said that he CAN do it, that it is legal because he's the one that makes the laws. Master said that while he owns us, that the things we do or make aren't ours, they're his.

All this time I thought that what we think and what we say is safe, that it's ours, that they can't own our thoughts or words, but it's not that simple. They're ours as long as we don't gain anything from them. The moment we do anything productive with those thoughts or ideas or words or beliefs, master says they're no longer ours, they're his.

It’s such a heartbreaking thing to see. The slave master's hypocrisy renders anything he says, anything he does, corrupt. All the proclamations that he's been spewing from his greedy thin-lipped mouth for so many years, about how hard work pays off, and doing the right thing is rewarding, and how he's not here to punish us, he's here to help us, that he wants us to succeed and prosper, it's all bullshit, hollow words from a heartless man meant to be spoken but never acted upon. 

Your heart can only be crushed so may times before it suffers permanent, irreparable, damages. You can only be let down by your fellow brothers and sisters so many times before you're unable to trust their motives. You can only be betrayed so many times by your community before you give up and stalk off into the woods never to be seen again.

How do you trust a system that feigns empathy but fucks you over at every turn? How does hope survive when basic human compassion dies? How does a slave hold onto faith in humanity when his freedom is taken and his spirit is actively, repeatedly, broken?

The emancipation proclamation has a provision. Read the 13th amendment and you will see clearly that slavery after conviction is indeed still legal, you will see that I am not a freeman, that I am a ward of the state, that I am a slave. And it turns out that master DOES own any and everything I am, anything I create, say, or do.

Eventually frustration turns to anger, anger turns to hatred, hatred turns despair and finally, despair turns to exhaustion.

This is the point where spirits break; when you're too tired to fight back, when you can muster no more rage, and are no longer able to summon hope...this is where spirits go to die.

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p.s.

This is modern day slavery and the state of Michigan is actively crushing our spirits, outright stealing from prisoners and their families (or allowing private companies to), and blatantly ignoring any attempt at real rehabilitation or positive reinforcement. It has to stop, and only you have the power. Use your voice, for we don't have one, speak up for us because we've been silenced, and stick up for us because we are your brothers, fathers, sisters, mothers, friends and family. We are your fellow human beings.

We need your help to reach out to our state representatives to bring back good time in Michigan. We need some form of hope in here, some form of positive reinforcement, we need a chance to make it.

#MichiganPrisonReform

#BringBackGoodTime

#ModernDaySlavery